DoD eyes more deployments to Poland

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday the door is open to larger U.S. military rotations through Poland, including ground troops, as the international standoff persists over Russian incursions into Ukraine.

Hagel briefed reporters at the Pentagon after a meeting with Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, who came to Washington in search of more American soldiers, warplanes and support troops to help bolster security in a country nervously eyeing Russia’s expansionist behavior.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“We want to be as close to the West as possible,” said Siemoniak, speaking through a translator. “There is no other way for us to guarantee our own security.”

Hagel did not say whether the Pentagon would consider a permanent Army base in Poland, which Siemoniak has said he wanted. But Hagel did say that U.S. and NATO warplanes would continue to rotate through Poland and that American fighter aircraft deployed there amid the Russia crisis would remain in place for the rest of the year.

Beyond that, he said, “no decisions have been made.”

Hagel and Siemoniak spoke as Secretary of State John Kerry was wrapping up meetings with Russian, Ukrainian and European diplomats in Geneva. Washington wants to back down from the standoff through negotiations, but Hagel acknowledged that Moscow’s adventurism meant NATO must be prepared for anything.

“We have to be alert to all possibilities,” he said. “The actions of the Russians over the last two months are not only irresponsible, with violating the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation, they’re dangerously irresponsible … [NATO’s role is to] think through, what are the possibilities, what could happen, so yes, based on past actions, we have to look at every possibility.”

Hagel said the U.S. has protested an encounter last weekend in which a Russian Su-24 Fencer attack jet buzzed the destroyer USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea. Previously, defense officials had said they’d had no contact with the Russians about it, but Hagel said commanders have made their displeasure quite clear.

“We didn’t tell ‘em we were happy,” he said.

Hagel also told reporters he’d spoken with Ukraine’s defense minister earlier Thursday to notify him the U.S. was sending a shipment of nonlethal military materiel it had requested, including medical kits, helmets, sleeping mats, water purification units, shelters and power generators.

The U.S. will remain open to other requests for supplies, Hagel said, but Washington appears to continue to draw the line at weapons, munitions or other such assistance.